Follow Sports Court on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube for more NIL content!

Today’s Case

North Carolina, Virginia approve high school athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness beginning July 1.

This past Wednesday, North Carolina and Virginia became the 27th and 28th states, respectively, (plus Washington D.C.) to allow high school athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness.

There are certain guidelines in place for both states: The Virginia High School League (VHSL) doesn’t permit student-athletes to profit from any activity that involves a school team, name, logo, or mascot - while the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) mandates student-athletes, alongside parents, coaches, athletic directors and principals, to complete the National Federation of High Schools NIL course every year.

As with NIL deals for college athletes, deals for high school athletes involving adult entertainment, alcohol, tobacco and electronic smoking, opioids, controlled substances, casinos, gambling, sports betting, weapons, firearms and ammunition are prohibited.

The Verdict:

• More states should follow suit fairly quickly to legalize NIL for high school athletes

  • Neighboring states that have not approved NIL for high school athletes could see themselves at a loss if they don’t do so soon, including losing players that will transfer schools to a state that allows for NIL at the high school level.

• North Carolina is already receiving pushback

  • Merely hours after North Carolina passed their NIL bill, Senate Bill 636 was passed to prevent the NCHSAA from being the decision maker on NIL and shifting power to the state’s Board of Education to make such decisions.

    • This will be an interesting story to follow in the coming weeks on how this affects NIL within the state

• This is not as detrimental as some people make it out to be

  • One of the biggest fallacies of NIL at the college level was that people would stop watching college sports altogether, as they felt said athletes wouldn’t be playing for the love of the sport

    • As proven over the past two years, this is the farthest thing from the truth, and this shouldn’t affect high school athletes in a negative way.

Angel Reese signs NIL deal with Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge

Reese adds another partnership to her growing portfolio. Check out this quick video on Instagram!

Question of the Day

Do you need to have a large social media following to take advantage of NIL?

• Yes

• No

Vote on the Sports Court Instagram Story and comment below.

Thank You for reading today’s newsletter

<sup>I discuss insights and news related to name, image and likeness in 3 minutes or less every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12p ET/9a PT.

Please share with anyone who might be interested in this content.</sup>

Court is adjourned. Go be great!!